Mike Daisey vs. Apple

Mike Daisey had a podcast on “This American Life” as well as a play that told a story about his trip to China. He posed as a businessman so that he could get inside the company when what he really wanted to do was get information on the companies working conditions. This play is a critique of the 

            Apple company and what they put their employees through. Come to find out most of the story was not true but rather a bunch of made up stories to make the company seem horrible. Very little of what Daisey said is actually true. This leads to the podcast “The Retraction” which tells of all the lies Daisey put in his story. I’m glad they retracted the original podcast and took the time to explain what happened. It is important for everyone to know the truth.

This story is very public and in fact was the podcast on This American Life that that attracted the most listeners. The listener’s were not aware that what they were listening to was not true. Upon listening to the podcast you’re head is filled with horrible visions of guards with guns at the doors, under aged workers, people being overworked and a man who got his hand mangled by one of these machines and not get any medical attention. It makes think very poorly of China and this company. This then affects the company’s image and could potentially affect their business, over lies. This is not fair at all.

I understand that Daisey is not a journalist but he made everyone think that his story was true which makes it not right. If Daisey were to label his work as fiction there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. The parts he made up were to give his work drama and make it more interesting. It was to attract the readers’ attention which is what you do in writing. For example, Daisey said that he spoke with a man who got his hand mangled by a machine that made Ipads yet the man had never used an Ipad or seen one turned on ever in his life. Daisey makes the point that he’s never even used and Ipad yet this device made him lose his hand. It brings emotion to the story and overall just makes it better, but when the reader thinks this is true it makes them dislike the Apple company as I said before it is not fair to them.

I think that the story would have been fine if Daisey would have labeled his work. Instead, he chose to lie about the trip, and continues to lie even after the truth has come out. It's almost like someone starting a rumor about you causing you to lose all of your friends. It’s just not okay in any way to basically ruin this company’s or China’s reputation over a story that isn’t true.